This study aimed to establish the manifestation of constructive journalism, and the perceptions and attitudes of journalists and editors towards the form, in South African digital news. A qualitative content analysis was applied to a sample of 134 articles on “evictions” (written during SA's first Covid lockdown in 2020) from three online news-outlets varying in editorial approach. Semi-structured interviews with a purposively selected sample of journalists and editors followed. Findings showed that the most distinctive principles of constructive journalism were largely absent in the articles. Yet, interviewees recognised a role for the form to be introduced alongside watchdog journalism. Views ranged from supporting constructive journalism as a necessary and valuable approach that would strengthen watchdog journalism, to seeing constructive journalism as a “nice to have” in the overall news cycle. In some of the outlets, constructive journalism has recently been included in output, even if not labelled as such. The contrast between the two dataset's findings indicates a shift in how some journalists have started thinking about the information needs of audiences and ways to address those. Journalists showed acute awareness of the effects of relentless negative news on audiences. Findings revealed that industry pressures posed significant challenges to the implementation of constructive journalism, but that certain of those challenges are also opportunities. One proposition was that newsrooms collaborate to tackle big-issue projects through creating joint investigative/constructive teams. Some journalists had difficulty with a clear conception of constructive journalism but found it noteworthy to see constructive journalism as an additional step in the overall news cycle not replacing their monitorial role. Interviewees wanted to learn more about expanded interviewing techniques proposed in constructive journalism to add complexity to conflict reporting. The study enriches understanding of the applicability of constructive journalism in developing democracies and shows that the form can add nuance and complexity to current practices of watchdog journalism dominating South African news-reporting. The risks of constructive journalism being misinterpreted or manipulated by partisan media requires of journalists to adhere to rigorous journalistic norms proposed in constructive journalism.

Tagging has become one of the key activities in next generation websites which allow users selecting short labels to annotate, manage, and share multimedia information such as photos, videos and bookmarks. Tagging does not require users any prior training before participating in the annotation activities as they can freely choose any terms which best represent the semantic of contents without worrying about any formal structure or ontology. However, the practice of free-form tagging can lead to several problems, such as synonymy, polysemy and ambiguity, which potentially increase the complexity of managing the tags and retrieving information. To solve these problems, this research aims to construct a lightweight indexing scheme to structure tags by identifying and disambiguating the meaning of terms and construct a knowledge base or dictionary. News has been chosen as the primary domain of application to demonstrate the benefits of using structured tags for managing the rapidly changing and dynamic nature of news information. One of the main outcomes of this work is an automatically constructed vocabulary that defines the meaning of each named entity tag, which can be extracted from a news article (including person, location and organisation), based on experts suggestions from major search engines and the knowledge from public database such as Wikipedia. To demonstrate the potential applications of the vocabulary, we have used it to provide more functionalities in an online news website, including topic-based news reading, intuitive tagging, clipping and sharing of interesting news, as well as news filtering or searching based on named entity tags. The evaluation results on the impact of disambiguating tags have shown that the vocabulary can help to significantly improve news searching performance. The preliminary results from our user study have demonstrated that users can benefit from the additional functionalities on the news websites as they are able to retrieve more relevant news, clip and share news with friends and families effectively.

Frågeställningar: Hur påverkas konsumtionen av digitala nyheter av individuella preferenser och ålder? Hur påverkas inställningen till digitala nyheter på olika utlämningsformer av individers preferenser och ålder? Syfte: Studiens syfte är att beskriva konsumtionen av digitala nyheter i olika åldersgrupper och att analysera konsumenters individuella preferenser gällande detta. Vidare är syftet att analysera de faktorer som påverkar konsumtionen av digitala nyheter. Ett delsyfte är även att beskriva och analysera olika åldersgruppers preferenser och inställning gällande olika utlämningsformer för digitala nyheter. Det slutliga syftet är att tillhandahålla rekommendationer till digitala nyhetsbyråer som de kan använda sig av för att tillmötesgå individers preferenser vid konsumtion av digitala nyheter. Metod: Studien har genomförts med en en induktiv ansats och en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi. Primärdata samlades genom intervjuer och fokusgrupper. Resultat och slutsatser: Utifrån studiens resultat drar vi slutsatsen att konsumtionen av digitala nyheter påverkas i större grad av individuella preferenser än ålder. Vidare identifierades påverkansfaktorer, där intresse påvisades vara en av de viktigaste. Respondenterna uppvisade en positiv inställning till mobila nyhetsapplikationer och sociala medier som utlämningsformer för digitala nyheter. Teoretiskt och praktiskt bidrag: Studien bidrar med åtta faktorer som påverkar konsumtionsmönstret av digitala nyheter. Vidare bidrar studien med en klargörelse av individuella preferenser gällande utlämningsformer för digitala nyheter. Studiens resultat kan sedan ligga till grund för hur digitala nyhetsbyråer kan tillmötesgå konsumenters preferenser.  Nyckelord: Konsumentbeteende, konsumtionsmönster, individuella preferenser, ålder, digitala nyheter / Research question: How is the consumption of digital news affected by individual preferences and age? How is the attitude towards digital news on different digital channels affected by individual preferences and age? Purpose: The purpose of the study is to describe the consumption of digital news in different age groups and to analyse consumers’ individual preferences regarding this. The purpose is furthermore to analyse factors influencing the consumption of digital news. It is also to describe and analyse different age groups preferences and attitudes towards news on different digital channels. The final purpose of the study is to provide digital news agencies with recommendations that they can use to meet individual preferences regarding the consumption of digital news. Method: The study is based on an inductive approach and a qualitative research method. The data has been collected through interviews and focus groups. Results and conclusions: Based on the study’s results we conclude that the consumption of digital news is affected to a greater extent by individual preferences than age. Furthermore factors that affect the consumption of news were identified, where interest was shown to be one of the most important factors. The respondents showed positive attitudes towards mobile news applications and social media as digital channels for news. Theoretical and practical contribution: The study contributes eight factors that affect the consumption of digital news. Furthermore the study clarifies different age groups attitudes towards news on different digital channels. The study’s results could form the basis for how digital news agencies can accommodate consumer preferences. Keywords: Consumer behaviour, Consumption pattern, individual preference, age, digital news

The way digital news are being created today is very different from traditional printed methods. The digital news format has possibilities that printed versions do not have. For example, they can use animations, video, audio, and interactivity, referred to with a collective name as rich content in this study. The problem is that there is little knowledge about rich content, how it is being used and the reasons for using it. By interviewing journalists and content creators, this study aims to answer the following questions: How can rich content help convey a digital news story to the reader in a more engaging way than traditional methods? How can rich content help widen the audience of digital news stories? Through semi-structured interviews, the author explored how rich content is used, and how people think when creating it. Ten employees at the media house Schibsted, all working at different Norwegian newspapers, participated to this study. The results indicate that rich content in digital news articles can help convey a news story’s main points by delivering complex things in an easy and understandable way. As a result, rich content seems to encourage more readers to finish the whole article. This study has also found that rich content can be used to widen the audience, since it can make the promotion of an article more interesting and make more people eager to share the article on their own social media accounts. Furthermore, targeting news articles towards different user groups could help widen the audience even further. Strengths and weaknesses are discussed, and the future work section show potential in further investigating how different user groups are affected by rich content, and what types of articles can benefit the most by using rich content. / Det sätt som digitala nyhetsartiklar skapas på idag skiljer sig mycket från traditionella tryckta metoder. Det digitala nyhets formatet har möjligheter som tryckta versioner inte har. Till exempel, användning av animationer, video, ljud och interaktivitet, som med ett kollektivt namn kallas för rich content i denna studie. Problemet är att det finns begränsad kunskap om rich content, hur det används och anledningarna till användning av det. Genom intervjuer med journalister och innehållsskapare har denna studies mål varit att besvara följande frågeställningar: Hur kan rich content hjälpa till att förmedla digitala nyheter till läsaren på ett mer engagerande sätt än traditionella metoder? Hur kan rich content hjälpa till med att bredda publiken av digitala nyheter? Genom semistrukturerade intervjuer undersökte författaren hur rich content används och hur de anställda tänker under skapandet av rich content. Tio anställda på mediehuset Schibsted, som alla arbetar vid olika norska tidningar, deltog till denna studie. Resultaten indikerar att rich content i digitala nyhetsartiklar kan hjälpa att förmedla en nyhets huvudbudskap genom att leverera komplexa saker på ett enkelt och mer förståeligt sätt. Resultaten visar på att rich content verkar uppmuntra fler läsare till att läsa klart hela artikeln. Denna studies resultat visar även att rich content kan användas till att bredda publiken, eftersom det kan göra marknadsföringen av en artikeln mer intressant och får fler människor att vilja dela artikeln på sina egna sociala medier. Vidare kan riktade nyhetsartiklar mot olika användargrupper hjälpa till att bredda publiken ytterligare. Eventuella styrkor och svagheter diskuteras och stycket framtida arbete visar potentiell vidare undersökning gällande hur olika användargrupper påverkas av rich content och vad för typ av artiklar som kan dra störst fördel av användning av rich content.

Story-focused news articles are a different type of news articles, containing more visual and interactive elements, developed in order to engage a younger audience for online newspapers. User engagement has been defined as the “emotional, cognitive and behavioral connection between a user and a resource”, and different metrics are used to track the user engagement of the readers on these articles. However, there is no prior research on which of these metrics describe user engagement in the most accurate way. This study therefore aims to find out what metrics to use when measuring user engagement on story-focused articles through interviewing readers of three different story-focused articles and compare their engagement levels with actual metric values tracked. The results show that two out of the three articles can be considered engaging according to the definition, and the metrics they both have in common is high values of scroll depth, low values of bounce rate and high values of page views. The study therefore concludes that a combination of these three metrics describes user engagement in the most accurate way possible. Furthermore, both the engaging articles have a large number of images, galleries and videos compared to the non-engaging article, which indicates that visual elements in different forms are a winning concept for story-focused articles. / Nyhetsartiklar som fokuserar på berättande är en ny typ av nyhetsartiklar som innehåller fler visuella och interaktiva element, utvecklade för att engagera en yngre publik för digitala nyhetssidor. Användarengagemang har tidigare definierats som det “emotionella, kognitiva och beteendemässiga kontakten mellan användaren och resursen”, och olika mätetal används för att mäta användarengagemanget hos läsarna av nyhetsartiklar som fokuserar på berättande. Däremot finns det ingen tidigare forskning på vilka av dessa mätetal som beskriver användarengagemang på bäst sätt. Den här studien har därför som mål att ta reda på vilka mätetal som borde användas vid mätning av användarengagemang för nyhetsartiklar som fokuserar på berättande, genom att intervjua läsare av tre olika artiklar och jämföra deras engagemangsnivå med uppmätta mätetal. Resultaten visar att 2 av de 3 artiklarna kan anses engagerande enligt definitionen, och mätetalen som de båda har gemensamt är ett högt genomsnittligt scrolldjup, låg nivå av studsar och höga siffror för sidvisningar. Studien drar därför slutsatsen att en kombination av dessa tre mätetal beskriver användarengagemang på bästa möjliga sätt. Dessutom har båda de engagerande artiklarna ett stort antal bilder, gallerier och videor jämfört med den icke engagerande artikeln, vilket indikerar att visuella element av olika slag är ett vinnande koncept för historieberättande artiklar.

This study derives from a located a gap in the methodological coverage and ways inwhich filter bubbles previously have been problematised. It is structured to through auser perspective to find ways in which users navigation and experience is influencedby personalised consumption. Through interview studies of digital natives, two mainfocuses of navigation and experience have been chosen with the aim to bring nuancedperspectives to the current state of filter bubbles. The first, using the theoreticalframework of uses and gratifications sets out to answer: In what ways do digitalnatives navigation contest the personalisation of their news consumption?I found that most interview participants have developed both thorough and individualways of navigating in their news consumption process. Personalising filters are bysome seen as assets to optimize content and by others as thresholds that enforcerestrictive behaviour. However, most participants seem to be mildly concerned orunaware of personalising features in their news navigation.The second focus of user experience seeks to clarify the motives behind usernavigation by answering: In what ways do digital natives experience of theirnavigation contest the personalisation of theirs and others news consumption?I find that some participants consider the impact of their own interactions withtheir personalised consumption, but do not understand the extents of it. I also find thatshared social norms and traditional media permeate the critical view that allparticipants carry with them through their navigation. I use these findings to introducea suggestion to problematise personalisation through user experience as a way ofbenchmarking filter bubbles that to my knowledge have not been used before.Lastly, by looking at the navigations and experiences of the participantsthrough a theoretical framework of power, I conceptualise their interactions asmotives of counter power towards a personalisation to answer:How can the motives of digital natives navigation be contextualised as acts of counterpower towards their personalised news consumption?I identify both interactions as motives of counter power with some participants’ newsconsumption, and experiences of subjectivity to power in others. But can’t determineto which extents it relates to the personalisation or other factors in the participantsnews consumption.

Consuming news and defining its credibility play a large role in our everyday lives. The digitalisation of news has enabled new interactions with the medium, that have yet to be analysed in their impact on credibility. This study aims to investigate the effects interactivity has on perceived credibility and how user interactions can be applied to the digital news medium. The analysis is done through a user -centric approach using both qualitative and quantitative methods based on design thinking. The methods used include a digital questionnaire, user interviews and prototype testing. Using these methods we find that no strong association can be made between the frequency of use of specific digital interactions such as sharing, liking and commenting and perceived credibility. While most users see an added benefit in having more interactive elements on a digital platform, it cannot be concluded that overall higher levels of interactivity lead to higher credibility. However, if interactivity is used to enable people to voice their opinion an increase in trust can be built, which subsequently increases credibility. / Att konsumera nyheter och definiera deras trovärdighet spelar en stor roll i vår vardag. Digitaliseringen av nyheter har möjliggjort nya interaktioner med mediet, som ännu inte har analyserats i deras inverkan på trovärdigheten. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka effekterna som interaktivitet har på upplevd trovärdighet och hur användarinteraktioner kan tillämpas på det digitala nyhetsmediet. Analysen görs genom en användarcentrerad metod med både kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder baserade på designtänkande. Metoderna som används inkluderar ett digitalt frågeformulär, användarintervjuer och prototyptestning. Med hjälp av dessa metoder finner vi att ingen stark koppling kan göras mellan frekvensen för användning av specifika digitala interaktioner som att dela, gilla och kommentera och upplevd trovärdighet. Medan de flesta användare ser en extra fördel med att ha fler interaktiva element på en digital plattform, kan man inte dra slutsatsen att övergripande högre nivåer av interaktivitet leder till högre trovärdighet. Men om interaktivitet används för att göra det möjligt för människor att uttala sig, kan man öka förtroendet, vilket därefter ökar trovärdigheten.

Studien har för avsikt att undersöka äldres känslor inför användning av digitala nyhetsmedier samt hur en interaktionsdesigner kan arbeta proaktivt för delaktighet i samhällsdebatten, när fysisk nyhetsdistribution fasas ut och digital distribution är det som kvarstår. En utgångspunkt i studien är att äldre individer ofta besitter förmågan att använda digitala medier, men har låg motivation. För att utforska mer kring detta används Foggs beteendemodell (2009) och dess tre beståndsdelar för förändring av ett beteende - förmåga, motivation och triggers. Modellen är utformad för att ringa in mönster, attityder och beteenden i digitala miljöer. Datainsamling i studien sker genom strukturerade dagböcker, vilka genomförs som en kvalitativ metod under en längre tidsperiod. Dagböckerna bygger på uppgifter som ska genomföras i den digitala nyhetsaggregatorn Omni (2022). Respondenterna för dagböckerna är sex till antalet och är individer i 60-årsåldern som har en smartphone och tar del av nyheter regelbundet. Resultat från dagböckerna visar att alla tre beståndsdelar i Foggs beteendemodell (2009) är betydande, men att det främst är triggers som är avgörande för en beteendeförändring. Det framkommer även att tidigare erfarenheter, förväntningar samt pragmatiska och hedoniska aspekter har betydelse. Avslutningsvis presenterar studien förslag på hur en interaktionsdesigner kan arbeta för att involvera äldre individer i en digital nyhetsdistribution, för att i en förlängning minska klyftor mellan generationer samt bevara medborgarnas rättigheter att ta del av samhällsinformation. / This study aims to examine older people's feelings about using digital news media and how an interaction designer can work proactively for older people’s participation in the public debate, when physical news distribution is phased out and digital distribution is what remains. A starting point of the study is that older individuals often possess the ability to use digital media, but have low motivation. To explore more about this, the study uses Fogg's behavior model (2009), which contains three components of changing a behavior - ability, motivation and triggers. The model is designed to capture patterns, attitudes and behaviors in digital environments. Data collection in the study takes place through structured user diaries, which are implemented as a qualitative method through a longer period of time. The user diaries are based on tasks to be performed in the digital news aggregator Omni (2022). The number of respondents for the diary is six and they are individuals in their 60s who have a smartphone and receive news regularly. Results from the diaries show that all three components of Fogg's behavior model (2009) are significant, but it is primarily triggers that are crucial for a behavioral change. It also appears that previous experiences, expectations and pragmatic and hedonic aspects are of importance. Finally, the study presents suggestions on how an interaction designer can work to involve older individuals in digital news distribution, in order to reduce gaps between generations and protect citizens' rights to access civic information.

[ES] Durante la escritura, el metadiscurso permite que un escritor guíe, dirija e interactúe con sus lectores, ya que hereda la intención, la postura, los pensamientos y los sentimientos del escritor. Los marcadores del metadiscurso permiten a los lectores comprender el juicio del escritor y la evaluación de la audiencia objetivo del escritor junto con la idea del contexto en uso. Por lo tanto, el metadiscurso se ha convertido en uno de los métodos más populares para examinar textos y un tema de investigación predominante desde que saltó a la fama a principios de la década de 1980, y continúa con su popularidad actual. Con la rápida progresión digital, hoy en día, la gente está muy interesada en los periódicos digitales, que son la versión en línea de los periódicos impresos. La razón principal de la atracción hacia estos periódicos digitales es que las personas tienen la oportunidad de compartir sus opiniones en forma de comentarios después de leer una noticia en particular. Debido a este creciente interés de las personas en los periódicos digitales, los periódicos emergentes, así como los periódicos bien establecidos y presti- giosos, están creando una versión en línea de sus periódicos impresos. Nuestro estudio se centra en los comentarios digitales (específicamente, comentarios de noticias), donde los comentaristas expresan sus puntos de vista, opiniones y pensamientos a través de sus comentarios y respondiendo a los comentarios anteriores en el mismo hilo. Esta tesis doctoral tiene como objetivo la exploración y comparación de marcadores metadis- cursivos sobre los comentarios digitales de los comentaristas. Sostiene nuestro empeño de realizar un trabajo novedoso en el campo de la investigación del lenguaje. Además, también puede allanar el camino para futuros investigadores de idiomas. En ausencia de un corpus de referencia para los comentarios de noticias en in- glés, compilamos nuestro corpus teniendo en cuenta tres dominios populares (deportes, política y entretenimiento) y dos ideologías políticas diferentes (izquierda y derecha). Recolectamos 2034 comentarios digitales y un total de 2004 respuestas de 64 artículos de noticias de 12 periódicos ingleses líderes de tres países diferentes (Reino Unido, India y los Estados Unidos de América) que pertenecen tres continentes distintos (Europa, Asia y Estados Unidos de América). En este trabajo, examinamos el uso de los marcadores del metadiscurso basado en cuatro aspectos: diferentes dominios, el conocimiento del inglés, diferentes geolocaliza- ciones y diferentes ideologías políticas. Con base en estos cuatro aspectos, este estudio examina las similitudes y los contrastes entre los escritores (en nuestro caso, los comen- taristas), lo que ayuda a comprender el uso que hacen los escritores de los marcadores del metadiscurso. En esta disertación, en el contexto de los comentarios de noticias digitales en inglés, por primera vez, presentamos un análisis cuantitativo y cualitativo en profundidad de los marcadores metadiscursivos (interactivos e interactivos). Concluimos que los comentaristas usan marcadores de metadiscurso de manera diferente en diferentes dominios; sin embargo, el uso del metadiscurso puede verse afectado por la ubicación, el idioma y las ideologías políticas de los comentaristas. / [CA] Durant l'escriptura, el metadiscurs permet que un escriptor guiï, dirigeixi i interactuï amb els seus lectors, ja que hereta la intenció, la postura, els pensaments i els sentiments de l'escriptor. Els marcadors del metadiscurs permeten als lectors comprendre el judici de lescriptor i lavaluació de laudiència objectiu de lescriptor juntament amb la idea del context en ús. Per tant, el metadiscurs ha esdevingut un dels mètodes més populars per examinar textos i un tema de recerca predominant des que va saltar a la fama a principis de la dècada de 1980, i continua amb la seva popularitat actual. Amb la ràpida progressió digital, avui dia, la gent està molt interessada en els diaris digitals, que són la versió en línia dels diaris impresos. La raó principal de l'atracció cap a aquests diaris digitals és que les persones tenen l'oportunitat de compartir les seves opinions en forma de comentaris després de llegir una notícia en particular. A causa d'aquest creixent interès de les persones als diaris digitals, els diaris emergents, així com els diaris ben establerts i prestigiosos, estan creant una versió en línia dels seus diaris impresos. El nostre estudi se centra en els comentaris digitals (específicament, comentaris de notícies), on els comentaristes expressen els seus punts de vista, opinions i pensaments a través dels seus comentaris i responent als comentaris anteriors al mateix fil. Aquesta tesi doctoral té com a objectiu l'exploració i la comparació de marcadors metadiscursius sobre els comentaris digitals dels comentaristes. Sosté el nostre afany de realitzar un treball nou en el camp de la investigació del llenguatge. A més, també podeu aplanar el camí per a futurs investigadors d'idiomes. En absència d'un corpus de referència per als comentaris de notícies en anglès, compilem el nostre corpus tenint en compte tres dominis populars (és a dir, esports, política i entreteniment) i dues ideologies polítiques diferents (és a dir, esquerra i dreta). Recollim 2034 comentaris digitals i un total de 2004 respostes de 64 articles de notícies de 12 diaris anglesos líders de tres països diferents (Regne Unit, Índia i els Estats Units d'Amèrica) que pertanyen a tres continents diferents (Europa, Àsia i Estats Units d'Amèrica) ). En aquest treball, examinem l'ús dels marcadors del metadiscurs basat en quatre aspectes: diferents dominis, el coneiximent de la llengua anglesa, geolocalitzacions diferents i ideologies polítiques diferents. En base a aquests quatre aspectes, aquest estudi examina les similituds i els contrastos entre els escriptors (en el nostre cas, els comentaristes), cosa que ajuda a comprendre l'ús que fan els escriptors dels marcadors del metadiscurs. En aquesta dissertació, en el context dels comentaris de notícies digitals en anglès, per primera vegada, presentem una anàlisi quantitativa i qualitativa en profunditat dels marcadors metadiscursius (interactius i interactius). Concloem que els comentaristes usen marcadors de metadiscurs de manera diferent en diferents dominis; no obstant això, l'ús del metadiscurs es pot veure afectat per la ubicació, l'idioma i les ideologies polítiques dels comentaristes. / [EN] In the course of writing, metadiscourse allows a writer to guide, direct and interact with their readers as it inherits the writer's intention, stance, thoughts, and feelings. The metadiscourse markers allow the readers to comprehend the writer's judgement and evaluation of the writer's target audience alongside the idea of the context in use. Hence, metadiscourse has emerged as one of the most popular methods for examining texts and a prevalent research topic since it was first brought to prominence in the early 1980s, continuing to its current popularity. With the rapid digital progression, nowadays, people are highly interested in digital newspapers, which are the online version of printed newspapers. The prime reason for the attraction towards these digital newspapers is that people get a scope to share their opinions in the form of comments after reading particular news. For this increasing in- terest of people in digital newspapers, emerging newspapers, as well as well-established and prestigious newspapers, are creating an online version of their printed newspapers. Our study focuses on digital comments (specifically, news comments), where the com- menters express their views, opinions, and thoughts through their comments and by replying to the previous comments in the same thread. This doctoral dissertation aims at the exploration and comparison of metadiscourse markers on digital comments of the commenters. It upholds our endeavor of conducting a novel work in the field of language research. Moreover, it can pave the way for future language researchers as well. In the absence of a benchmark corpus for English news comments, we compiled our corpus by taking into account three popular domains (namely¿ sports, politics, and entertainment) and two different political ideologies (namely¿ left-wing and right- wing). We collected 2034 digital comments and a total of 2004 replies from 64 news articles from 12 leading English newspapers of three different countries (the United Kingdom, India, and the United States of America) belonging to three distinct conti- nents (Europe, Asia, and America). In this work, we examine the use of metadiscourse markers based on four aspects: different domains, English language proficiency, dif- ferent geo-location, and different political ideologies. Based on these four aspects, this study examines the similarities and contrasts among writers (in our case, com- menters), which aids in understanding the writers' usage of metadiscourse markers. In this dissertation, in the context of English digital news comments, for the first time, we present an in-depth quantitative as well as qualitative analysis of metadiscourse markers (interactional and interactive). We conclude that the commenters use metadiscourse markers differently across dif- ferent domains; however, the use of metadiscourse may be affected by the commenters' location, language, and political ideologies. / Banerjee, A. (2023). Digital Comments on News: A Contrastive Study of the Rhetorical Devices used in the United Kingdom, India and the United States of America [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/195352

Thesis (M.A. (Media Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / This study examined the effect of digital news reporting on professional journalistic practice focusing on fake sport news websites. It evolves from the fact that, despite the progressive benefits of the digital revolution, the rise of fake news websites has become common practice associated with the clickbait that spreads rumours posted on unofficial accounts often with a journalistic pretext. The aim of this study was to examine how fake digital sport news reporting impacts on professional journalistic practice. The objectives of the study were: to describe the nature of internet-based fake sport news stories and websites; to assess the credibility of sport news disseminated through fake news sites, and to determine the implications of fake sport news stories and websites on standard news practice. The descriptive design within the qualitative interpretive paradigm was used to determine the negative effect that fake sport news has on professional journalistic practice. Qualitative content analysis of ten sample news excerpts and in-depth interviews with sixteen expert informants were complementarily used to collect data. Interpretive phenomenological analysis was applied to generate discursive themes which yielded the study outcomes. The data from screenshots and interviews were collected, corroborated and analysed, using content and thematic analysis techniques. After analysing both the screenshots and the interviews, a total of eight themes emerged from the study. The study notes how fake sport news and its associated litany of misinformation and/or disinformation has contributed to the creation of false hypes about sports news to the detriment of professional journalism practice. The study revealed that fake sport news is prominent on social media and poses a major challenge to journalistic integrity and credibility. From the various screenshots, fake headlines were identified as a contributing factor to the rise of fake news stories. It was also found that fake sport news has a negative effect on journalism practice, as it spreads lies, makes people more interested in emotional stories and forces credible news agencies to also use sensational headlines to gain the attention of an audience. The interviews revealed that characteristics of fake sport news stories are exaggerated, misleading, have no source or attributions, no by-lines or unknown authors and misrepresent so-called facts. iv vi The study recommends that research, fact-checking, naming and shaming people/websites that popularize fake sport news should be made known to the public; proper training and assertion of certain rules, regulations and ethics for new reporters and journalists to follow and stick to; there must be thorough research and cross checking of information gained from a secondary source; a governing body to possibly monitor and crack down on serial propagators and spreaders of fake sports news stories; sport journalists should alert readers of fake sport news and fake sport news websites, as these are common in sport due to the popularity of sport news sites; and sport journalists should stay away from reporting/re-writing and sharing fake news in order to maintain credibility and ethics in sport news reporting.